This invention is directed to a divergent or load bar insert, wire organizer, or manager for use in positioning and aligning a plurality of electrical conductors in a modular plug, for example, where such insert, by its unique arrangement of conductors, offers significantly improved crosstalk performance to the modular plug.
While the invention has particular relevance to a modular plug, it will be understood that it has applicability to other electrical connectors, where higher performance through reduced crosstalk is desirable and necessary. A current standard or performance level used today is identified as Category 5 products, where operating frequencies may be 100 MHz or higher.
For convenience, the further description will be directed to the field of modular plugs, a product well known in the art, and the applicability of the invention hereof as it relates to the enhanced performance of a modular plug. Modular plugs, a relatively inexpensive electrical connector, are used extensively in telephonic and other data communication systems. Frequently such plugs must be terminated in the field by technicians, or manually in a factory by assembly personnel. Typically the cable to be terminated in the plug is a bundle of four twisted pair, insulated, multi-colored wires (eight in total) within a cable jacket or wrap of an insulating sheath. The bundle may optionally include a drain wire or surrounding shield for use in a shielded plug. In any case, to prepare the cable for eventual termination in the plug, the cable jacket is peeled back to expose the various insulated pairs. Thereafter, with the several insulated wires exposed, the wires are untwisted and arranged in the desired order, generally in a side-by-side fashion. The wires are then individually inserted into the connector housing and terminated by an insulation piercing blade, a termination procedure known in the art. Because this loading process is so time consuming in the factory, cost effective procedures had to be developed to speed up the process. The result was the development of wire organizers.
Loading bar inserts, or wire organizers, have been known for several years, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,713,023. The invention thereof includes a wire positioning means for holding insulated conductors in an array so that the ends thereof are presented in alignment below terminal receiving cavities when the wire loaded positioning means is in the housing. The positioning means includes cam means formed thereon and adapted to engage a housing strain relief section when it is moved downwardly, whereby the positioning means is moved forwardly in the housing to fully seat the positioning means therein and position the free ends of the insulated conductors below the terminals. There is no reference therein to aligning the insulated conductors in plural planes prior to the termination thereof.
In UK Patent Application NO. 2 249 222 A, assigned to the assignee hereof, there is taught an electrical connector and insert therefor, where the invention relates to a plastic insert for such connector and has a row of wire guiding mouths each for guiding an individual wire into a passageway as the cable is inserted into the connector. The cable has at least one wire less than the number of the passageways and the insert has at least one solid blanking-off portion for blanking off the single or plural unused passageways. The wire guiding mouths of the insert are defined by at least one longitudinal opening having scalloped longitudinal edges. Again, there is no reference to improving crosstalk performance by altering the conductor paths within the connector.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,601,530, assigned to the assignee hereof, teaches a preloaded wire organizer for a modular type plug. Specifically, the patent teaches the process of preloading wires into a wire holder which locates the leading ends of the wires at the same pitch as passageways in the connector housing. The wire holder supported by the wires, is then inserted into and along a mouth of the housing until it abuts a tapered throat at the entrance to the passageways. Further advance of the bundle feeds the discrete wires through the wire holder into the respective passageways guided by the throat, while the wire holder remains adjacent the tapered throat.
All these prior art systems were guided by the primary need to speed up field termination. There was clearly no recognition of the later need to improve performance of the connectors. Recently, Stewart Connector Systems, Inc. of Glen Rock, Pa., introduced a Category 5 performing modular plug utilizing a sliding wire management bar, where such bar contains two rows, each with four through holes, to receive the standard eight wires of a cable. To use the management bar, the user is advised to arrange the wires in two equal sets, and cut each set of four at a 45.degree. angle such that no two wires are of the same length. With the prepared wires, the wires are individually fed into the holes of the wire organizer, in sliding engagement therewith, than trimmed to the same length. For the loading step, the wire organizer is first pushed to the end of the trimmed wires, then inserted into the connector housing. In the fashion of U.S. Pat. No. 4,601,530, when the wire organizer can no longer move forward, the wires are pushed beyond the wire organizer into a position to be individually terminated, as known